


Three Into Two

by Britpacker



Series: Human Sacrifice [2]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:09:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8064985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: It's the morning after an unexpected night before.  Malcolm's not sure what to expect, but at least Trip knows exactly what he wants.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).
> 
> **Author's notes:** Sequel to "The Point Of A Triangle", unbeta'd and not mine. There's a small reference to 1.16 "Shuttlepod One" and a short epilogue from a third party's point of view.

Usually Malcolm Reed went from sleep to complete consciousness at the same speed he did everything else, but today... no. His body resisted the siren shriek from his brain, loose and languid, determined to linger in its contented cocoon. Something warm and solid was cradling him from behind. It made him feel too good to wake up.

The solid thing moved. It sighed. 

Realisation slammed him like a brick to the chest. "Oh, fuck!"

"Huh?" Trip Tucker's sleep-thick mumble only heightened the embarrassment Reed could feel flooding every millimetre of his unwieldy body, haste and the remnants of sleep making him clumsy in clambering free. "And a very good mornin' to you, too," the Southerner mumbled, scrubbing his heavy eyes. 

Stupidly clutching both hands across his wedding tackle Malcolm had nothing free to cover his mouth when he coughed, thrown by a combination of good-natured rebuke and the sheer, naked splendour of a groggy Tucker doing battle with the captain's sheets.

_Oh, bollocks. The captain's sheets!_

"Where's the captain, then?"

Only when the other man's awkward movement abruptly stilled did he realise he had asked out loud. "Pro'bly on the bridge," Trip grunted, delicate enough in even the most surreal circumstances to gather the topsheet around his waist and keep his line of vision above the shoulder. "You seen the time?"

"Shit!" His uniform, Malcolm knew, was in his quarters; freshly ironed and hanging on the cupboard door. His civvies from last night...

A collection of rags scattered over the captain's carpet. "Um, he's left us a note," Trip volunteered, removing one hand from his modesty protector just long enough to throw a pillow Reed's way. Gingerly planting it across his midriff Malcolm eased to a sitting position on the edge of the mattress, his eyes narrowing as the meaning of Jonathan Archer's scribbled words sank in.

_Good morning, guys._

_You're off duty until 13:00 - captain's orders, Lieutenant! The kettle's boiled, so help yourselves to tea and coffee, and I don't want to see either of you on the bridge until you've talked things through._

_Unless you've got better things to do than talk, in which case I'll see you tomorrow!_

_Love,_

_Jon._

Tucker cleared his throat. "He set us up."

Still scowling at the note in the other man's hands, Reed answered without thinking. "Yes, I heard that."

In an instant ambient temperature dropped by ten degrees. "You were awake!" Tucker yelped accusingly.

"Just about." The evasion did him no favours; immediately Malcolm retracted it. "Yes, of course I bloody well was, and I'd have said so if anyone had bothered asking!"

It wasn't exactly honourable to jump down the man's throat for being caught out, either. "Sorry," he mumbled, letting his head drop. "I don't mean to be a twat. I just don't know..."

"Likewise." Trip's hand hovered over his neighbour's shoulder for several seconds before he dared let it drop, both men expelling matched sighs that the contact was accepted. "Was he right? Were you oglin' my ass last week?"

"Have you been mooning over me since spacedock?"

Starfleet standard interrogation techniques; meet a question with a question. Not for the first time, Reed was relived the Academy's engineering stream didn't share that part of the tactical syllabus. "Course it is!" Trip erupted. "Dammit, Malcolm, you think I'm blind or somethin'?"

"No, I thought you were straight." The colour barely had time to fade before rising to stain his high cheekbones again but in spite of himself Malcolm Reed was aware of a giddy rush welling inside. "You and the captain..."

"Stress-relief; and not always a whole lot of that either." The same strange sensation, he gathered, was affecting the Adonis at his side; the man whose blunt fingertips were rubbing small circles against his upper arm. Torn between wanting more and fearing it would stop if he drew attention to it, Reed dared not move. "Jon's bi, but he don't like it. Me? I'm easy either way."

"Bit of a turn-up, the three most senior humans swinging both ways." 

"Guess that's one way of putting it." The slight smile on the Englishman's upturned face was all the encouragement Trip needed - especially with the memory of how it looked contorted with passion piercing his brain - to swoop in for a quick, almost bashful kiss. "You want that tea Johnny mentioned?"

"I'll make it. Coffee?"

"Thanks." No need to enquire how he took it; each man knew the other's minor preferences, Malcolm considered, much better than the really major ones. He was so busy trying to look occupied he completely forgot modesty, giving the older officer what Trip mentally marked down as _one helluva show._

He knew immediately Malcolm realised it: the faint rose hue even climbed out from between his butt cheeks, like a flame running along the edge of a page until it hit the hairline. "Er, if you wouldn't mind..." Reed stammered, his neck twisted into a painful position as he tried to simultaneously glance over his shoulder and avoid looking at the man he was addressing. Trip grunted.

"'kay" he said amiably, wrenching off the bedspread and offering it the Brit's way. Malcolm studied it for a moment before contriving to drape it, midway between a Roman senator's toga and a conventional cloak, around himself. 

"Probably a bit silly of me," he apologised, shuffling in his makeshift garment to present his steaming coffee to the other man. "It's not as if you didn't see it all last night, is it?"

"And a mighty fine sight it was, too." The lascivious remark was accompanied by a noisy lip-smack and in spite of himself the Englishman laughed. "Seriously, Malcolm. Jon's right, I've been dreaming about you for a long, long time. Last night... guess I wouldn't have done anything without him there pushin' me along, but you've got to believe me: I wanted it big-time."

"He was right about me, too." Discomfort made his hand tremble but when hot tea splashed over the rim of his mug and over the delicate flesh Malcolm discovered pure joy made the perfect painkiller. "I was practically salivating over your gorgeous bum when you clambered out of the maintenance shaft in front of me last week! But I thought you were straight, so..."

"Gawd we're dumb sometimes."

"Apparently."

Tucker snorted. "I suppose that's how Jon gets his extra pip," he muttered, getting himself cross-eyed in an effort to simultaneously check out the lip of the cup held waist-high while not looking down. "He's just not quite as dumb as the rest of us."

"Or it could be he's the oldest."

"Maybe." There was a familiar edge of mischief softening the edges of that crisp English accent, something that had a matching effect on the lump of ice settled deep in Trip Tucker's guts. "You're not mad at him, are you?" he ventured. 

The bed sighed beneath Malcolm's slight movement. "I'm not sure about looking him in the eye anytime in the next - oh, two years," he answered drily. "But humiliation aside, no. I'm rather in awe, actually. I'm not sure I could've been that generous."

The broad golden brow beneath tousled blond hair furrowed. "Yeah," Trip agreed softly. "But I guess he knows what he can give isn't enough - not for me, not even for him anymore. Hell, it's never been enough for me, but you take what you can get, right?"

"Stress relief?" Malcolm quoted, his grimace suggesting the words stung on their way out. Trip shrugged.

"Kind of. Jon's okay for the hand sometimes - likes the talk, too. Maybe it's enough for him but it's always left me feeling kind of... empty."

"I don't _do_ stress-relief." A steely note Trip didn't like edged Malcolm's gritty words. "I've found it rather disrupts things."

"Tell me about it." Especially when one friend carried on out of obligation, Tucker concluded inwardly. "Thing is, Jon doesn't like being bi, and he can't do the whole _commitment_ thing. I don't think that's because I'm a man though: I figure he'd be the same with a woman. He belongs to Starfleet, and that doesn't leave a whole lot of time for anything else."

"Do you want _the commitment thang?_ " Reed asked faintly.

It was as near a straight invitation as he was going to get and Trip snatched at it with both hands. "Hell, yeah!" he exclaimed, dumping his unwanted cup with a clatter that made the more fastidious Englishman wince while he set his aside more delicately. "Jon knows that - the guilt's been tearin' at the both of us for a while, him knowing he's not makin' me happy, me knowing he hates himself for wanting me... I need somethin' more, Malcolm. Maybe - maybe he's right, it's something we could give each other?"

"I don't go for casual shags with fellow officers, Commander." Instinctively he opened his mouth to protest the title but the words died on Trip's tongue when Malcolm shifted onto his hip and fixed wide, wondering eyes on his face. "But - sorry, I'd like to be clear about this. What, exactly, do you want that our gallant captain can't give? A cock up your arse?"

"Well, that'd be real nice if you're offering, Loo-tenant." An insidious little tickle started up behind Trip's ribcage, like a kindling flame that began to spread and lick around his heart. He felt warm for the first time in forever. _This is going to work. He wants this too._ "But what I'm really thinking of here's a relationship. You know what they're about, yeah?"

"Theoretically." Briefly long lashes dipped and Trip felt himself being carried back to a freezing shuttlepod, hearing a quiet, resigned British voice admit to abject failure where the practicalities were concerned. Aware he'd likely have his head taken off for any expression of clumsy sympathy, he shoved the memory aside.

"I want all the little things couples have," he said flatly, letting the encircling arm drop off Reed's shoulders so they could turn fully to face each other, he with a long skirt of sheet tangled round his waist, Malcolm draped in his strange blue bedspread toga. "Being together: sharin' a bed; holding hands and laughing at old jokes; having breakfast, lunch and dinner together and never being bored or wonderin' what to say to sound clever; makin' out when the chance comes up because we just - want to. I want to hold the man I love close at night and watch him sleeping; I wanna know he'll be there smilin' at me when I wake up. I want us to be happy, you and me, together. Sounds good, doesn't it?"

"And you want people to know you're with another man? To be open?"

The real question remained unspoken yet still seemed to echo round the quiet room. "To be gay?" Trip asked quietly. Malcolm's shoulders heaved. 

"The captain obviously has an issue with it," he said.

"Yeah. Do you?"

"I've never cared for being gawped at."

"Malcolm, are you being evasive?"

"No, Trip." The pale grey gaze that met his was calm, and it lifted a weight from him Tucker hadn't realised he was carrying. "I'm being honest. I know this isn't the nineteenth century, whatever my old man might think, and I have no problem with being bisexual. It's just..."

"That folks'll notice. Maybe they'll even point and stare for a couple of days. But when they see we're happy, they'll be happy." He understood reticence - or thought he did, Trip amended - even though he'd never actually experienced it. "I want you, Malcolm. Day and night, good times and bad, whether you're laughin' at Travis's lousy jokes or whinin' about Phlox trying to keep you in Sickbay five more minutes. And I want everyone to know, you're taken."

"Possessive, are we?"

"I can be." He wasn't on his ass with a pair of highly trained hands around his throat. Trip figured the cheek was worth risking.

When Malcolm laughed and let the upper part of his makeshift garment drop he felt like he'd been handed the universe on a platter. "It's not just a sex thing," he said, leaning in and releasing the tight grip on his own covering in his earnestness. "I'm in love with you, Malcolm Reed, and I think Johnny knew it before I did. Hell, he's a smart guy. Maybe he even thinks that you're in love with me."

"And I thought I'd hidden it so well."

The admission was so quiet - so mournful if it wasn't for the twinkle that accompanied it - Tucker thought for a moment he'd misheard. "From me, you had," he breathed. "Jesus, if I'd known..."

"You do now."

The bald statement stopped him dead until it permeated his bloodstream for what it was: a truly _Malcolm_ invitation, accompanied with a killer half-smile and a subtle shift of the hip that sent what was left of his covering slithering like a snake's cast skin to the floor. "Yeah," Trip breathed, surprised he could get the word out through a throat that had closed up instantaneously. "Looks like I do."

"Well then, Commander." Suddenly confidence seemed to ooze from the younger man and he leaned backward, sprawling over the captain's bed with all his impressive physical attributes on erotic display. Thanks to the metal band tightening around his throat, Trip had lost the power to swallow.

â"Whadda you want me to do, Lieutenant?" he croaked, every fine hair on his bare body rising to the same state of full attention as his gloriously swollen cock. Malcolm arched an eyebrow.

"You could start by bringing that down here," he cooed, crooking a finger toward Trip's enthusiastically bobbing erection. Tucker bit down hard on his bottom lip.

And immediately regretted it as another shot of sensation rocketed down to his core. "Hell, yeah!" he growled, kicking himself clear of the sheet around his ankles. "Not just a quick fuck, agreed?"

"Hmmmm, I was rather thinking of a long, slow shag myself." The weight of the other man's body pressed down on him and Malcolm welcomed it, limbs lifting to lock it safe in place. His tongue tickled the shell of the bigger man's ear. "Just as a starter, of course."

Pleasure rippled from the feathery contact point. Trip's hips rocked. "Guh!" he replied.

"Ooohh, sensitive there, are you" Audibly pleased with his discovery Malcolm set about making a few more around his man's upper body until Trip was a rocking, babbling puddle of incoherent delight. "Sensitive in lots of places," the Englishman approved breathlessly, not entirely unaffected by the subsequent friction against a few of his own more tender spots. "Tell me what you want, Trip."

"Uuuhhhh!"

"Mmm, so eloquent." He sounded slurred to his own ears, all the clipped precision of his duty accent dissolved. "Do you want to fuck me? Have me inside you? Tell me!"

His answer came in true Tucker style, with action above words. The bigger man wriggled free and rolled, lifting his buttocks in blatant invitation. "C'mon, darlin'," the Southerner groaned, mashing his face down into the bedding. "Wanna feel you fillin' me so bad..."

Primal lust surged, turning the spacious room around him blood-red. Blindly Malcolm groped for something - anything - to ease his path, only just stopping a sob of relief when his palm curled around the familiar shape of a squeezy tube. The smell identified it before the first touch of cold cream against his tingling fingertips: vanilla massage oil.

Another time he might wonder at the image of Jonathan Archer slathering himself in fragrant lotion late at night, but in that moment Malcolm's only thought was of the handsome blond squirming, humping the air for want of anything more substantial. Absently he applied a kiss to the base of Trip's spine before nosing southward, down the crease between the rounded golden buttocks, massaging the tender flesh until his greasy fingers found the sensitive spot behind the Southerner's balls. 

A muffled moan reverberated around the cabin. Malcolm felt its echo in his deepest core and ruthlessly he drove home his advantage, probing his way into the blond's unresisting passage. 

"Aaahh, yeah." Briefly coherent Tucker half-raised his head, shuffling backward in search of deeper penetration. "Don't be gentle, darlin'. I want - oh, yeah!"

Two fingers splayed within him and a firework display exploded in his skull. Over the din he just caught the shimmer of a sexy chuckle. "There?" Malcolm purred.

"Uuuhhh!" 

Self-satisfaction coloured the voice that flowed over him - and through him too, Trip was groggily convinced, via the fingertip nudging his hottest spot. "Yes, just there," it approved as a touch more pressure was applied to the prostate. Trip jolted as if he'd just been plugged into the EPS grid. 

Malcolm's phallus throbbed. He reached down and squeezed himself hard, his teeth grinding noisily. Not too fast. He'd dreamed of this too long to rush it now.

But oh, it was hard to hold back, entering the open arse of his glorious, golden Trip a millimetre at a time, trying to savour the sensation while his hormones hammered and his vision began to blur, sweat dribbling into a pair of goggling grey eyes. The heat, the silky feel of those tight walls clenched around his most susceptible region, it was all too much for his self-control, so much more than he had ever known before.

Of its own volition his hand wormed under his lover's undulating body to curl around a shaft already slick with its own juice. "Come on, love," he panted, punctuating the words with kisses that scattered over shoulders, nape and spine. "Let go, let it happen, I want..."

For Trip Tucker those gravelled pleas were the final straw. Battered by sensation, his backbone in flames from the pressure against his prostate, his cock throbbing in a skilful hand, he let out a strangled cry and succumbed, pleasure spilling in great waves through his liquefied length. He was barely aware of the hot rush of Malcolm's seed as the Englishman shuddered to his own release. There was no starship; no mattress supporting his weight. There was just the pleasure, the light and the certain knowledge that only Malcolm Reed could make him feel this good.

For an age they floated in the afterglow, still plastered together even after Reed had slipped free of his mate's cloying channel and collapsed, breathing heavily, back on the pillows. Trip rolled into his gentle hold and snuggled in, his head lolling back against the brunet's shoulder. "Love ya," he rumbled.

"Mmm, that's mutual." Malcolm sounded sleepy, all roughened at the edges. Trip liked it.

Then the comm. blared.

"Archer to Trip. You there, buddy?"

_Now where in hell else would I be?_ Clumsily he lunged for the bedside unit, his hand clashing with Malcolm's on the way. "Go ahead, Cap'n!"

"It;s okay - I'm in the ready room." Belatedly the older man's discomfiture penetrated their happy cocoon. "Uh, I just wanted to check if everything's okay?"

For once the gregarious American was struck dumb. "We're fine, Jon," Malcolm responded, the use of his commanding officer's given name a reassurance all of its own. "And - if I might say so - thank you."

"Just make each other happy." Archer sounded genuinely choked and Malcolm could see the emotion reflecting in his lover's eyes while his own throat closed up with the intensity of his grateful awe. "And bear in mind I'll be there to kick your respective asses out the nearest airlock if you ever hurt each other! Lunch in my mess, thirteen hundred hours?"

"We'll be there," Trip pledged at his companion's shaky nod. Archer's exhale rolled around the room.

"Then you've got two more hours to... hell, whatever! See you later, guys."

"Two hours, huh?" The engineer murmured, eyebrows a-waggling. "Now what are we gonna do with ourselves?"

Dizzy with the rush of unfamiliar confidence Malcolm shifted until he was propped up on the pillows, his legs apart and, had he but seen it, the sultriest smirk in the universe gracing his handsome face. "Oh, I dare say we can think of something," he purred, raking a look down the other man's length that had an immediate effect on formerly somnolent portions of the Southerner's anatomy. "In fact if you'd care to return the favour... it's been a long time since I had a man balls-deep."

To Trip Tucker it felt as if Enterprise had lurched from Warp 5 to a dead stop in a nanosecond. "You like that?" he creaked, lapping at his bite-swollen lips. Reed stretched, ending up with both hands tucked behind his tousled head. 

"With the right man, I like just about anything," he said simply, an involuntary shudder convulsing him at the lightest brush of the other man's hand down his flank. Leaning in for a time-stopping kiss, Trip unleashed his deadliest smile.

"And I'm gonna be just that," he pledged, before proving the point in the most emphatic way. Two hours, both men were certain, had never passed more quickly.

**Epilogue: Archer**

There's total silence in the mess hall. Nobody's moving. Travis's ice cream is melting off the end of his spoon and dripping into his crotch, but he hasn't noticed yet.

"Come on in, guys. Lunch is served." 

"Thanks, Cap'n." Trip's preening. His chest's pushed out, his head's high, and that grin would illuminate the whole ship if we had a sudden power-cut. Malcolm? Well, I finally know what _shy defiance_ looks like.

There's a tinge of pink on those fabulous cheekbones; a slight bristling in his erect posture. But his hand is wrapped tight around his lover's and he's not twitching under the shocked looks that are being fired his way. "And thanks for the morning off," Trip adds, loud enough to be heard on the bridge.

T'Pol will appreciate that a whole lot more than she did the non-appearance of the Senior Tactical Officer at his station! 

"I won't say "anytime" because I know you'll take me up on it," I joke, standing aside to usher them into my private dining room together. They look good like this. Natural. And it doesn't hurt me a bit.

There's a burst of applause from the mess; when I turn around I realise the whole crew is standing, broad smiles on every face as they salute Enterprise's newest couple. These people are Starfleet's finest. Of course they've read the signs as well as I did. 

Trip's floored, standing there with his mouth open. Malcolm - well, who'd have thunk it? - lifts both eyebrows, then grins - actually _grins_ \- and executes a theatrical bow. The applause mutates into noisy, good-natured cheering.

Now more than ever I know I've done the right thing. Enterprise will be a better ship - a happier ship - for their relationship. They'll be happier - and better - officers because they have each other. And me?

Hell, I've lost nothing because I never really had either of them. And when I feel the need to blow a little steam on my own, I've got plenty of fresh rocket fuel for my fantasies!

Oh, fuck! I left my last bottle of vanilla oil by the bed. 

Malcolm drops Trip's hand and, ever so briefly, squeezes mine. "Thank you, Jon," he says, looking me dead in the eye. "For everything."

I can face the quartermaster's knowing grin when I request another lotion set in the morning. I've sacrificed my dignity for a good cause. And when I say "You're welcome" to my two best friends, I mean it. 

Still: they'd better ask me to perform the ceremony when, being the old-fashioned men they are, they get around to that marrying thing!


End file.
